Redemption
by vagabound
Summary: The history of the world is often written in the shadows, by people whose shaping of that history are either forgotton, or hidden. In the year 2030, two agents of the FBI are going to uncover a little piece of that hidden history.
1. Chapter I: Thanksgiving 2002

Disclaimer: Don't own anything in these writings, and I am making now money from it. All I'm doing is borrowing the characters of Chris Carter and one of my own devising and putting a plot around it, same with any other trademark or copyright items that will be in this fic.

Plot Points: MSR, future, DRR, may be more

Okay, first time writing an X-files fan fic, as I lost track of the show after a move overseas, and read the episode transcripts off the net. Here's my take not on the events post Season 9, but way into the future. Call it tidying up loose ends, as I read the ending of the show and I wasn't too impressed. To the X-files fans out there, forgive any errors visible as unlike Harry Potter research, there is no one website with a lot of information and just bear with me as I had to do a lot of guesswork with this one.

Besides, I had to take a break from the other fan fic I'm doing as I had finished one chapter and am half way through the second (doing a massive, 12 thousand word update) when the first chapter of the next update got deleted by an accident on a floppy I was using. I'm still trying to figure out a way to correct _that_ little problem.

Note: I never bought the concept of the 'Morley' cigarette. Here, I'm not pussyfooting around, and am calling them what they are: Marlboro Reds.

Warning: Blood, Gore, Violence, Cursing, and Sexual Situations throughout

**Chapter I**

Wyoming

1850 November 23, 2002

A light snow was falling, and would blanket the road, covering the trees, and the mountains surrounding and forming the land on which the house stood. A road connected the house to the highway, and there, parked next to a copse of pine trees, a black four-door Lexus was parked with a view of the road and the house, the engine idling. Despite the cold and blizzard, one of the windows on the tinted car was cracked down, and from within smoke and steam rose like a cloud. Silently it waited, the steam and smoke the only sign it was occupied, and that was gone with the snow and light wind blowing.

Inside, a silver haired man whose face was lined with creases and wrinkles, as though he had spent a lifetime carrying burdens big and small, opened his hard pack of Marlboro Reds and took one out. Next to him was a cell phone, currently being recharged with the car's cigarette lighter, and a bottle of Coca-Cola. Putting the Red between his lips, he lit it with an old black Zippo lighter, and leaned back in the soft leather of his seat. Enjoying himself, he slowly dragged and breathed the heady nicotine, and continued his examination of the house.

It had been almost six months since the incident with Mulder and Scully in New Mexico. Six months for him to get rid of his enemies in the Syndicate, and six months to ensure the continuation of the Project. He had, as he had done before, used a body double, someone altered to talk, act, and look like him. It wasn't the first time he had done it, nor did he think it would be the last time he would have to orchestrate his own death and disappearance. The only thing that had bothered him was dealing with the two federal agents who had, like him, vanished into thin air it seemed, for now, at least.

He had hated what he had had the double say, the harsh and brutal things to muddy the waters, and to keep the secrecy. For what he had revealed to the couple had only been part of the story. Was humanity on a collision course with history? Of course, but one thing the couple hadn't known, would never guess by the actions he had taken, was taking, would be that the man who smoked the Marlboro Reds and known once to his friends (when he had them) as Charlie Spender was that he had never surrendered, and never would.

The Project, the one the couple had found, was but one limb of a body that Spender had spent a long, long time creating and shaping. They knew of colonization, and one of the options to prevent it. However, they did not know of one pet project that he had been preparing, one that could shift the balance of power, and bring the situation to something where instead of being the Indians fighting the Europeans, the reason why they had so many years ago had to surrender. No, with what he was planning in secrecy so great that only he knew the full scope of it, it could end up as more of a Cold War, a standoff between two of more or less equally powerful enemies.

He took another drag, and shook his head. Perhaps it was the holiday season, perhaps it wasn't, as he had spent a sizeable time before New Mexico contemplating the actions he had taken in life, actions that had cost him a wife, a lover, just about all of his children, and the few people he had once called friend. Unlike other people, he knew exactly when he was going to die, and of what. It wasn't the fact his time was coming. No, the thing was he had done things vile and dirty over the years that the lines he had told himself when he was younger, that what he was doing would be for the best, for the survival of his children, their children, and then _their _children, no longer held sway. As a young man, sitting in a dismal orphanage library, he had read and daydreamed of one day being the one people could look at say was a man of unbent integrity, a man who had done the right thing. Spender's integrity had long been gone, and his soul crusted with filth. That disturbed him, for while he had persuaded himself long ago that all he did was for the right, the very idea that they were going to have execute the option that he had helped created felt not of success, but of failure.

Charlie Spender did not like or accept failure.

Feeling the heat on his fingers, Spender looked at his slowly smoking remnant of cigarette for a moment. He knew what he had to do for a little bit of redemption, but that redemption would cost him the Project, and without the Project everything he had done, every dirty deed he had stomached, would be for naught. Spender knew he had another option, one that would call upon him to do quite a few more vile deeds before he got what he sought. Deeds that would give him nightmares, ones he would smother through liquor and tobacco and in the writings he still did in his off time. He didn't even know if there was redemption, yet…

Spender smiled, and stabbed the cigarette into the side of the small ashtray of the car. Everything he was thinking of, he had thought of before he had driven to the road, and waited, watching as an entire family from across the state and nation arrived for Thanksgiving. He had found out of the gathering through his usual channels and had decided that they that had to be neutralized. The reasons were immaterial, just that they were good people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Once the thought of exterminating an entire family as though they were cockroaches would have shook him, now it was just the price of business, and that callousness bothered him now as he thought of the plan and the possible consequences. The possibility of something good coming out of the filth he did would be worth it, or so he believed.

Most of the past several days he had been moving the necessary pieces into place, so that now he sat waiting and watching and wondering if he should even execute the chain of events he had in mind. If he didn't execute the plan, the main principal would be your average man on the street, and while that was an admirable goal considering what he knew of said principal, one event (rather a series of events he had set in motion over the last several years) that had bothered him for a long time would remain that way. On the other hand, the principal would end up having to go through experiences that reminded Spender too much of his own life, and he had once promised himself that nobody would have to go through what he had as a young boy. Now, it was apparently looked like the only way to correct those actions of so long ago…

A thought occurred to him, of the first writing he had tried to have published. Back when he had been younger, less callous, and more…passionate, Spender thought to himself. _Take a chance_, he mused. After all, even if things went bad, only he would be damned, and he had learned to live with that a long time ago. If what he set in motion tonight succeeded, then he just might have scrubbed a little bit of that damnation off, and earned a small sliver of redemption, and that was something he was willing to do anything for. One thing he had learned over the course of a life in the shadows was that anything good came with a steep price, and in this case, it was going to be a steep price indeed.

Picking up the cell phone, he punched in a number he had made use of before quite a few times.

"Yes?"

"Execute"

Spender hung up, and pulled out another cigarette. Lighting it, he watched the lights of the house, and plotted the next stage of the plan. He hoped that the principal would make it for it was going to take years for his machinations to bear fruit, but that didn't bother him. If nothing else, he had patience…and if the principal was anything like what he believed him to be, then that was not going to be an issue.

Hell's highway may have been paved with good intentions, but then the thing with roads was that they were two-way routes. Flicking on the radio, he leaned back, and listened to "Wish to Build a Dream On" an old jazz song he liked, as the smoke continued to drift in a lazy swirl out of the car.

_**

* * *

**_

_**Cheyenne Daily Herald, November 28th, 2002**_

_**Police Baffled by Brutal Thanksgiving Day Slaying**_


	2. Chapter II: Moscow 2030

Disclaimer: Same as before, the characters aren't mine and I have not copyright on them.

**Chapter II**

Moscow, Russian Federation

2318- June 8, 2030

The club was classic techno and 90s New Age, heady with smoke and body heat from the dance floor. Catering to the business crowd from the local offices, it was the epitome of the new economic boom Russia was undergoing after the war with the Chinese that had ended six years earlier. Cocktails, mixed drinks, imported brew mixing with the Russian standby of vodka. A band made up of a Pole, two Serbs, and a Ukrainian blared out the background music whilst the young people on the dance floor gyrated.

Close to the dance floor, a blonde young man in his late 20s was sipping tea in a booth, meeting with the local middle-aged gang boss. Both were dressed in the same attire of business suits as the crowd, only theirs was of a finer cut and quality, being imported from the finest New York and London tailors. The boss, owner of the club, was nursing a bottle of vodka, and wondering how much time the young man before him was going take to die. Said young man had worked his way up as the mover and shaker behind the effort to launder the Czar's money during the last year. The Czar, who happened to be the head of the council of Russian Mob families that in turn controlled an illegal criminal empire worth billions of US dollars, had needed someone to ensure that their billions were moved and hidden without the attention of international authorities, notably the Americans as they turned their attention on a new international crackdown on organized crime.

Said mission had been accomplished over the past eight months by the young man, who had set up contacts in dozens of American and European companies to make sure the Mob's money was processed and used to buy up legitimate businesses that ran the gamut from computer software wholesale to defense contracting. Unfortunately, it had come to the attention of the Mob that the young man with whom they had entrusted their money with may have found information, accidentally or perhaps otherwise that was best kept silent. Information like the pay lists the Mob kept (a legacy from the Cold War of the 20th Century being that thousands of Soviet KGB trained personnel made their way into Russian Organized Crime (ROC)) of the people in the US they bribed, to include judges, federal agents, and other civil servants. That was one reason. Another had been the fact the Czar feared that the young man was a spy planted by the American FBI, and based on previous information that they had discredited earlier coupled with the newer information, had ordered the boss to see to the execution of the traitor.

The boss, a man named Stefan Gorchko, looked over at the man across from him and counted him as a friend. Said friend, name of Yevgeny Renko, was considered that for during a recent gang war had saved Stefan's life during an assassination attempt earlier in the year, when the Chechen mob had made a move against the Russians for control of Moscow's streets. Now, Stefan had orders to ensure that the man before him, his friend, was a dead traitor as he had had to admit the evidence made sense. He would kill him because it had been ordered, but he wanted to look in the face of the man he was going to kill when that happened. Stefan felt that traitor or not, Yevgeny deserved at least that much from him. It was why he planned on having a good evening drinking with his friend, taking him back to the traitor's home, and killing him there with a Czech pistol (one that was a knock-off of the the German Sig-Saur P228) he had stashed in his jacket.

Stefan took a drink, and still found it hard to believe that the man before him was an American stooge. Earlier, he had watched the man complete another day's work playing with the week's haul and payments on the laptop he always used, and nothing had seemed to be out of order. Stefan decided he should see his friend's reaction when he told him how the bosses were worried of a high-ranking rat. Despite the evidence, he still had his doubts. One naturally had them when one was discussing whether or not the guy who saved your life when he didn't have to was also the same kind who would stab you in the back.

"So, Yevgeny, have you heard the boss is looking for a rat?"

Renko shook his head, and took another sip of his tea. "Any ideas, on just who precisely this asshole may be?"

Stefan laughed, "Gregor, that fuck, told me it was you, would you believe that?" Gregor was the Czar's obese and rather stupid son, and not held in high esteem by anybody.

Renko laughed, too, and the doubt grew in Stefan's mind. No surprise, nothing but laughter and humor. Much the same way he would act if he heard someone like Gregor was calling him a traitor: something to laugh at, not something to take seriously. There was no way that the man who was as smart as any university asshole and as brutal as the most vicious street thug was a traitor, Stefan thought to himself. Renko then leaned over, and whispered like a schoolboy with a secret, "Stefan, let me tell you a little secret, my friend." Stefan sipped his drink, and leaned over, so their faces were only inches apart. "I am the traitor. And I knocked your young daughter Svetlana up, too" Renko laughed, and Stefan joined him uproariously, as he thought his friend was making light jest as his daughter was a 18 year old lesbian with pink hair he really didn't think too much of.

Stefan was still laughing when Renko left hand, which he had kept under the table, slammed a four-inch, bone-handled hunting knife into his throat, right into the jugular. Renko was still smiling as he left the blade there, blood flowing out of it and down the side of the blade. Even though they were surrounded by people, Renko had done it so fast nobody had noticed, as the boss's bodyguards (eight of them) weren't paying any attention. Indeed, they had largely been hired by Renko in the first place after the losses during the Chechen War, and pretty much all of them were busy drinking or on the dance floor.

Renko picked up a large, plate-glass ash tray and smashed it into Stefan's face. Once, and his head whip-lashed back. Blood flew, and landed on a few people in the booths surrounding them. A woman screamed, and Renko knew the bodyguards must be aware of what was going on. Not wasting anymore time, as the prospects of a quick and quiet kill were long gone out of the window, he drew a pistol from the small of his back and fired. The round, a .40 SW hollow-point fired from a Czech 110 semi-auto pistol he had picked up off the black market, entered Stefan's head at the bridge of his nose and splattered his brains on the booth, and the people around him, Renko included.

By now the club was full of screaming people, music long stopped, all making their way towards the exits. Ignoring them, Renko dug into the pockets of his friend for the keys to the Mercedes he had parked near the club, and picked up his attaché case. That held the laptop and papers he used to work. Glancing around, he could see the men he had recruited trying to move through the crowd towards the door, obviously expecting him to go that way. Renko instead ran through the booths towards the ladies room, which he knew had a window above the stalls leading to an alley next to the club.

Slamming his body into the door, he entered with his pistol in one hand, and his briefcase in the other. It was fortunate that he did so, for he saw Arkady, one of Stefan's bodyguards, trying to untangle himself from some Armenian woman that wasn't his wife. Renko raised his pistol, and fired three rounds, taking Arkady in the shoulder, chest and neck. The woman was screaming as Renko saw the window above the stalls was open. His briefcase he threw out of the window, and heard it land onto the ground below, and he climbed through it and jumped to the alley a few feet below via the sinks.

Landing on his feet, he picked up his case, and threw his pistol into the trash. Taking the keys from his pocket, he ran to the 2028 Mercedes sedan that Stefan had stashed in the alley next to the club, and opened the door. It was unlocked for the same reason Stefan had it parked in an area tempting for any petty criminal to steal: he had the power to crush them if they touched what was his. Unfortunately, that same arrogance and domination was now helping Renko escape as he threw the case on to the passenger's seat, slammed the door, and locked them. Quickly, he inserted the key, started the car, and got it going at forty miles an hour down the alley. Flying out, he took a left and heard shots being fired. Looking in his rearview mirror, he saw that a few of Stefan's men had spotted him and were shooting at him.

Putting the pedal to the floor, he spent a good fifteen minutes driving aimlessly through the dark, Moscow night, just to make sure he wasn't being followed. Renko reached into his jacket, and pulled out a cell phone the inner pocket. Punching in a series of numbers, he put it to his ear, and waited for someone to pick up. "You have reached the Office of the American…" Swearing, he disconnected the phone thinking, So much for contingency planning.

Not fazed in the least, he punched in another series of numbers, and a sleepy voice answered, "Captain Green, speaking."

"Stan, its Ghost. I'm coming in. Vehicle is a gray 2028 Merecedes Benz."

The sleepy voice got all serious, and answered, "Roger, out" Again the line got disconnected, and Renko drove for twenty minutes, taking a roundabout route to the American Embassy. He knew that he probably wasn't being followed, but he wasn't taking many chances. The last time someone had gone bad as high-up as he was within ROC, they had fed him into a plastic shredder feet first.

Renko knew that for a fact, as he had been the one feeding the bastard into the shredder.

Spotting the lights on the walled compound, Stars and Stripes lit up so that everybody could see that it was the Embassy was US soil, Renko drove towards the iron gates. Marines carrying M8A2s at the ready in full battle rattle, with magazines in and rounds doubtless in the chambers, opened the gates and waved him in. Another one directed him to the path that lead to the underground parking garage for the embassy, and Renko started to take the path. Renko was glad when he saw the Embassy guard, and a flood of memories came back when he saw their uniforms. Reminders of a life he had once led, of a life that sometimes he wished he still lead.

Driving slowly now, he stopped the car in the garage, and waited until the garage door is close before he gets out, attaché case in hand. Captain Stanley Green, two Marines, and three suits come up to him. The suits were Special Agent Tom Marlboro, a tall, lanky, fifty four year old Southerner from South Carolina about to retire from the FBI after almost thirty four years of service with the FBI, mostly in Organized Crime and Intelligence. He was the Embassy's legal attaché, and the man in charge of handling the operation. Besides him were Jim Wilson, the local CIA station chief, and the pudgy brown haired figure of Special Agent Ed Conrad, another long-service FBI veteran.

Conrad called out to Renko, "Welcome back, Special Agent Black."

His world went red when he saw Conrad. Tossing the attaché case to Wilson, he ran and jumped with a snarl on Conrad. Conrad went down, as Black/Renko had both hands around his neck and was trying to squeeze the life out of him. Marlboro and Green stepped in, grabbing his arms and trying to pull him off of Conrad. It ultimately took one of the Marines to butt-stroke him in the small of Black's back before he let go. Marlboro looked at Black, and demanded, "What the fuck is the matter with you, Will?"

Pointing a finger at the rather blue-face figure of Conrad, Special Agent Will Black, Federal Bureau of Investigations, began yelling, "That son of bitch is on the Mob's take. I found the fucking records on the Czar's computer to show that this fucker sold me, and Ivanov before that, down the goddamn river!" With that Black made another attempt at ending the life of Ed Conrad.

This time the Marine had to knock him on the head, to put him out, to prevent him from killing Conrad.


	3. Chapter III: Washington DC 2030

Disclaimer: Same as before, etc.

**Chapter III**

Washington, D.C.

0350-July 7 2030

John Doggett eyes shot open as he realized the phone was ringing. He heard his wife murmur something, and John reached for the phone on the nightstand. "Doggett," he answered curtly. After a lifetime in the Marines, the NYPD, and the FBI, he was used to getting calls at unusual hours, but that didn't mean he was going to be pleasant about it.

A voice he hadn't heard since Christmas was on the line, "Meet me at the bench across from the Jefferson Memorial at the Mall in one hour. Go unarmed." The line disconnected, and Doggett hung up the phone. "Who was it?" John glanced over at his wife and former partner of nearly three decades Monica Doggett nee Reyes. She was wide-awake, and rolled over to look him in the eyes. John looked at her for a moment before answering. Not because he was thinking of a lie, or even thinking of the meet. No, after almost all this time he still found his wife attractive. Even after being woken from a sound sleep at four in morning.

"Sounded like Walt, and he wanted to meet by the Mall, near the Jefferson Memorial in an hour."

"You going?"

"Don't see why not. Sides, it won't kill me if I go for a bit of a long run today." He was referring to the fact it was a good ten miles to the Mall from the house they shared on the outskirts of DC.

John swung his legs out of the bed, and got up. Nude, he went over to the dresser, and pulled out an old faded pair of olive drab shorts and a short-sleeved crew neck shirt, this one red with MARINES in big gold letters on it. Monica stayed in bed, and watched as her husband got dressed. She asked, curious, "He say about what?"

"Nope, though I figure he will when get there." John quickly put on his old PT shorts and the shirt their son Walter had given him on the Marine Corps birthday. As a former Marine, he had been taught to never wear underwear in the summer to prevent crotch rot, and now, a half century later, he still didn't. Picking up his Timex from the nightstand, he put it on and kissed his wife on her forehead. "I'll be back, so don't cancel brunch with Fiona and Walter."

"Think that will be enough time?"

John smiled, "Of course, I want to see if the future Mrs. Doggett Walter's bring over is anything like the lady I was blessed with." Walter was a second lieutenant with the Marines who had come back from an exchange with the British Royal Marines with an English fiancé.

Monica smiled, and nodded and went with him to the door, locking it and going back to bed as her husband stretched and took off for the Mall at a fast clip.

Dodging traffic from time to time, John Doggett continued his run at a pace that people decades younger then him would have found hard to keep up with. As it was, few people would guess that he was approaching his 71st birthday after watching him run all day at a fast pace, knock out a buck fifty (150) pushups in a couple minutes without breaking a sweat, or hit the bull-eyes at 25 yards in a dark room with the issue SIG that the FBI still had after almost forty years of service. Doggett was long retired from the FBI when he had had to at 55, but still worked as a contract teacher at Quantico. Doggett thought of it like the Dogs playing poker painting: the old dog teaching the eager young puppies how to survive out in the field. Monica had gotten out shortly when Walter came along, and indulged herself with writing a series of detective novels for the young crowd.

Doggett ran, and thought how lucky they were compared with their friends Dana and Fox. Outside of Christmas cards and a wedding gift, they hadn't had any contact since the day the X-files were shut down for good. John knew the agency considered them to be missing people, but nobody had set aside then or now much assets to look for them. Doggett had been reassigned to a kidnapping response unit whilst Monica had been sent to Organized Crime. The two had been fortunate that they were assigned to the New Orleans office, and over the course of a year had fallen in love while still looking out for their friends from the X-files. It had saddened both of them that two people that had set them upon a good path, a couple they thought a great deal of, couldn't be on hand for the wedding, and later the birth of their son Walter and his sister Beth.

"MORNING, SIR!" A throaty bellow greeted him. It was a group of young, tanned, and crew-cutted men wearing OD PT gear a lot like his own, and running at an equally fast pace. Judging by their looks, John guessed they worked at the Pentagon and were getting in a weekend run. "Morning, Marines." Running in step with them, he shot the shit with the young jarheads, who had greeted because they figured him for an officer. John laughed, and told them he had just been another Marine like they were, only he had done his time with the 24th MAU in Lebanon way back in time.

The young pups humored him for a while before they split, and John found the meeting spot. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was 0435, and had a bit of time to kill. Stretching out onto the bench, he looked towards the Jefferson Memorial, and wished Monica was here. He had been on a stakeout in this same area, and the only good note of the experience had been to see the sunrise, and the angle of light and shadow had been positively beautiful.

His thoughts of Monica made him think, for not the first time, which he had received and made use of a second chance on life. The first marriage had gone to hell after Luke had died, and it had taken him a long time to bury those ghosts. Yet he had, and now, he had a wife, a son any father could be proud of, and a daughter who was finishing up college and going to med school to become a pediatrician. All in all, not bad considering how wild and crazy his ride on the roller-coaster of life had been.

"John"

A figure wearing a black suit sat down next to him on the bench and looked towards the memorial.

"Walt" Doggett greeted his former boss, Walter Skinner, who was retired even longer then he was and working as a security consultant for some defense contractor in Richmond, VA. Skinner set aside a small paper-bag, which held two glass jugs of orange juice. Taking them out, he handed one to John and cracked it open. "How's my godson doing?"

"Walter? He's bringing home the next Mrs. Doggett today."

"He enjoying himself? In the Corps I mean?"

John shrugged, "Yeah, it ain't like it was for me, or for you for that matter." Skinner had done his time with the 4th Marines in Vietnam, and had fought at Hue in '68 as a very, very young and frightened kid. Walter Doggett had been an officer for a couple of years, planned on going career, and had been blooded with his British counterparts during a tour in Indonesia.

They spent a few more minutes talking of small things, Doggett's family mostly, before John asked, "I know this isn't a social, Walt, so what's happening?"

Skinner sucked in air between his teeth, and asked him after a sip of juice, "You watch the news lately?"

Doggett frowned, "You mean the Blevins scandal? Yeah, that's all they talk about Quantico." The Blevins scandal had come out three weeks earlier when a string of arrests in the upper-echelons the Administrative Services Division (which was Skinner's old haunt) concerning corruption with Russian Organized Crime. Apparently a great deal of money had changed hands over a very long period of time in which the Agency's undercover operations had been compromised, with at least twenty agents dead due to the leaked information. Despite the fact the current Director, a former Assistant Director named Burnes, had managed to stomp out the problem by using an agent to infiltrate the ROC's own organization to hunt down the moles within, Burnes it looked like was still going to get the ax before Congress.

Skinner took another sip, and replied, "I'm giving you heads-ups for a recall to the Bureau." This got Doggett's attention as Skinner explained, "My old job, they want someone of the old guard, with impeccable credentials and a long history of service to the Bureau, watching over the department that got hit the hardest." He shrugged, "and if they have to burn someone else on your watch, then nobody whose career is active will be hurt, a perfect solution."

Doggett took this news in stride, and shrugged, "So I'll be getting a bigger office, and a lot more headache. Anything else?"

Skinner gazed at the Memorial, and the Mall. "One of the things that you will be ordered to do will be to reactivate the X-files." Doggett sat up, his attention really picked now. He had spent the better part of a career trying to reactivate that unit, and now, when the agency was its lowest ebb in a while, they were. It didn't make much sense, especially not in a department which was being examined all the more closely due to its recent scandal. For the moment though…

"Walt, what's your role in all of this? You being recalled, too?"

"Yeah, as a special advisor to the new Director, Fred Kranze, the Third Appeals District judge. He had heard of me, and asked if I was willing to take a pay cut to help him out for a couple of years getting the Bureau back on its feet. I accepted."

"Congrats. You ask him to reactivate it, or was it someone else?"

"Wasn't me, and the only reason I heard of it was because Kranze brought it up. He said that it was explained to him that every department in the Bureau was to examine just how much damage had been done over the years by the compromise of information to the Russian mob."

John was still lost, "So what does that have to do with the X-Files?"

Skinner pulled off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. "A full accounting of the agents we have lost over the years will be conducted, and Kranze decided he wanted the X-files brought back after reading some of my old papers." Skinner shrugged, "He liked the idea of Admin having a small, flexible investigative capability, one to handle any special or unique cases. Kranze has already decided to give that capability back as soon as he takes the office."

Doggett took a sip of his juice and wasn't surprised to find it empty. It was Tropicana, and he always found himself guzzling it….

"So when will I hear about my new job?"

"Probably tomorrow, when you go in for class. Kranze is taking over tonight, so that there won't be as much chaos during the change if it were done in the middle of a working week."

"Any specifics on how, rather who, will be working the files this time?"

"That will be up to you, but it will be the same as it was back in our time. Two agents, working in the basement, one drawn from the technical side of the house, the other from the investigative side."

Doggett nodded, and wondered just who the other Assistant Directors would try to foist off on him. Despite the fact that both him and Monica, for that matter Mulder and Scully, had had superb records when they had been assigned to the X-files, it had been the kiss of death for many careers. John had never raised higher then Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the office in Charlotte, NC office. Mulder and Scully, of course, had vanished, and Monica had gotten knocked up and retired. That sort of reputation had become legend, and John knew that the other divisions were probably going to try and foist the ash and trash of the Bureau to man the new section.

Skinner suddenly tossed his head back and laughed. John looked over at his friend for the past three decades, and asked, "What's so damn funny?" John had a sneaky suspicioun the thought of having sort out the bad from the worst the FBI had to offer had occurred to him as well.

"Just occurred to me that ever time the X-files has been opened we have had two agents in place. One male, one female, except for this one agent who was supposed to be there temporarily…"

"Krychek?"

"Yeah, but the point is every time…" Skinner shook his head, snickering, obviously amused. It was then it hit John what he was getting at.

With the exception of Krychek, every time they had had a team of agents on the X-files, the couple had literally ended up a couple. Doggett had to wonder what was going to happen this round.


	4. Chapter IV: Washington DC 2030

Disclaimer: Same as with Chapter I, etc.

**Chapter IV**

Washington DC

1440- July 18, 2030

Assistant Director John Doggett took off his reading glasses, and rubbed his eyes. All day from about seven to noon, and from about twelve thirty to now he had been examining the records of the agents that the other units in the FBI felt were best suited to the X-files. Rather, they were the agents that ran the gamut from dangerously over-confident to downright stupid. Most of the names he recognized from his days at Quantico, and none of them even came close to the requirements he had sent down: relatively young, some field experience, preferably been shot at before, good at either lone wolf or small-scale, tight-budget investigations with one other agent, and smarter then your average bear.

At the moment, he had been given the files of thirty agents, none of whom fit the bill for what he was looking for. Rather, they weren't what he was looking for in the investigative side of the house. Doggett had been fortunate that his next door neighbor was the lady in charge of the FBI's crime lab, and she had recommended someone who was not only one of her top forensics experts, but also had several years experience in Violent Crimes and Counter-Intelligence before her transfer to the Crime Lab. The problem Doggett had been running into was in getting the kind of agent he needed from the non-technical aspect of things. So far, the agents offered included four with money problems, three he knew were downright stupid, and one currently under investigation for being a closet fag. Also, about half were also on the black list Skinner had showed him of FBI agents who were suspected to have had illegal dealings with Russian Organized Crime and were under confidential investigation by the Justice Department's internal affairs unit.

John wasn't amused as he set the last file aside into the reject pile. Right now, he was tired, and wondering whether or not this was a cause in which he would have to go over people's heads for. It wasn't that he minded confrontation, it was just that he knew that the job he had right now was temporary, and he didn't want to destroy years of trust and rapport unless he absolutely had to. Judging by the material he was being offered, it was starting to appear as though he would have to pull rank and do just that…

Sighing, he started going through the piles again, separating the bad from the worse from the totally useless. Doggett was about three files through when his secretary Marge Dunn rang his office via the intercom. "Sir, a Special Agent Cardigan is requesting a moment of your time. She doesn't have an appointment should I…" John cut her off, "Send her in." Pushing the papers aside, leaned back into his chair and threw his feet up on the desk as a tall, blonde in her early fifties entered the office. She took a seat and asked, "How's Monica and the kids, John?"

"Walter's in the Marines, Beth's finishing up her BS of Anatomy at Georgetown, and is looking into Med School. Monica writes and is helping Walter's fiancé plan their wedding." John pointed at his silvering hair, "I, on the other hand, am going white-haired and I've had this job only a couple weeks, Helen."

Special Agent Helen Cardigan laughed. John Doggett and his wife had, before he retired out of the Charlotte office, taken the newly minted FBI agent under their wing and taught her a lot. She still sent Christmas cards, and birthday presents to his kids. Helen looked up to him as a mentor, and had been delighted to hear that he was back on active duty.

She took a look around the office, and slouched comfortably into the chair. "The office becomes you, John. Congratulations." Doggett snorted, "Congrats for getting a job that has me working fourteen hour days, and keeping me away from spending time with a wife, son, daughter, and future daughter-in-law."

John looked over at his former pupil, and said, "Hey, I only heard the other day that it was your section that cracked the Blevin's case. Congrats." Now it was Helen's turn to snort. "Yeah, it was cracked only because myself, Tom Marlboro, and Director Burnes threw out every rule on undercover operations the Bureau has in place, and risked everything on a long shot that turned up a web of corruption running through all levels of the Bureau. I'm surprised Congress hasn't tried to shut the whole Bureau down."

Doggett shrugged, "I never said the right thing was the easy thing. Besides, there have been other scandals, other black eyes which the Bureau has had to put up with over the years, and we're still here, and so will you."

Helen looked up, "No I won't. Myself, Marlboro, and a sizeable number of the older crowd within Criminal Justice are going to be retired this year. Didn't Kranze tell you?" John looked up, somewhat in shock that the Bureau would do something like that, but not really surprised. Like all government agencies, there had been a fuck-up, and heads would roll in the purges to follow. If the Director had been fired the way he did, then it only made sense that those subordinates that were either involved or close to the previous establishment would be given the shaft too.

John shook his head, "I'm sorry to hear that. You want to pull a few strings and…" Helen shook her head, "No, it was getting time for me to go anyways. Same with Tom, though there is one thing I would like you to do, a big favor…" John held up his hands and shrugged, "You name it, and you got it."

Helen nodded, "Okay, you know we broke the whole Blevin's thing when we tracked some unusual account transfers from him to Moscow right?" Doggett nodded, Earl Blevins had been the legal attaché in Moscow for a long time, and during his tenure in this office a number of the FBI's own had either been found dead or just plain vanished. After two failed attempts by the Inspector General's office at seeing if he was rotten or not, Director Burns and Cardigan had taken some very drastic action in an attempt to break the case.

"Yeah, you infiltrated one of our own into the Russian mob over a period of nine months. I read the IG's report on just how many regs were broken, and I must say was impressed, particularly the bit about the plastic shredder." Helen grimaced, "We told him to do whatever it took to find out what happened to George Ivanov, and to follow whatever leads from there."

"To include dusting a couple of Russian undercovers, and at least three civilians I take it? I don't think our allies over there were too pleased about that."

Helen shook her head, "No they weren't. You know what they plan on doing to him?" John nodded, "A promotion, and probably a long period in some remote field office to get him readjusted to civilization. Hell, maybe they'll send him to see Pistone." He was referring to the legendary FBI agent who had done similar in the eighties with the Italian mafia in New York, and currently did counseling for FBI agents who had undergone the same as him.

"No, they're getting ready to fire him."

Doggett looked shocked, as it would have been the equivalent of a guy bringing in Jack the Ripper and being punished for it. Helen explained, "He came back about a month ago, and has been in debriefing here and in Moscow for about three of those weeks. When he was released to his apartment in Alexandria on leave, he promptly went to a pub downtown and caused a brawl that wound up sending five civilians and a DCPD cop to the hospital. It was fortunate that I have a few favors over there, because it took all I had to keep it quiet."

Doggett interrupted, "He going up before the Discipline Board soon?"

Helen nodded, "Next week, but I don't want him going before it since the current atmosphere will mean he will have everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him." She got up and started pacing, and started to explain, "John, I know you've been ordered to reopen the old Spooky files, and I also know that no one in their right mind will want to send anybody with an iota of intelligence or skill to be part of it…" Doggett bristled at that, but before he could reply Helen continued, "You know I'm right John, so don't argue, just listen. This man went through some pretty sick shit for us, and I'll readily admit he screwed himself over on this big time. I think the Bureau owes him at least one more chance based on what he's done for us."

Doggett leaned forward, put his head into his hands, and sighed. Helen must have thought he was debating just how to say no for she kept on. "John, you need a relatively capable man with field experience, and knowing you someone who has been shot at before. Take this kid, John. He's been with the Bureau almost seven years after his discharge from the Marine Corps, and he's done some pretty amazing work for us before. You know, he was selected for that advanced program we were experimenting with at Quantico a few years back. Do you remember it?"

He looked up, as his memory recalled the program in which promising trainees at the Academy were sent to work as part of their training in a special capacity with several field units, along with another trainee as a partner to see if being partners with someone over a long time would produce a better quality of agent. "Where was he assigned?"

"He was in VCS, and broke the Atlanta strangler case, him and that other trainee he was partnered with. You remember him, surely?" Doggett had had many trainees, but this one sounded familiar. Grudgingly, he nodded, "Not much, but I'll take your word on it. You got a number so I can call him in tomorrow? To let him know that he'll be spending some quality time in the basement?" Helen smiled, and gave him a piece of paper. She got up to leave, and said, "Thanks John."

Doggett smiled, "No, thank you." At least now he had a chance to maybe, just maybe, make it home on time with the worst business taken care of.


	5. Chapter V: Alexandria 2030

Disclaimer: Same as Chapter I, etc.

Chapter V Alexandria, VA 

0945-July 19, 2030

Will Black slowly opened his eyes and threw his hand to pick up his phone, which was ringing off the hook. Rather, was ringing off the nightstand on which it was kept. Picking it up, he put it to his head, and mumbled, "Hello?"

"Special Agent Black?"

His mind kicking into gear upon hearing his name, he answered, "Speaking, who is this?"

"This is the Assistant Director Doggett's office, and I'm informing you that you have an appointment at one this afternoon."

Secretary, a stuffy middle-aged bitch, Will thought to himself. Sighing, he answered, "Is the AD aware I'm currently on leave? That I'll be going before…"

"The Assistant Director has told me to tell you that you are to be here at one this afternoon to discuss your upcoming review by the Disciplinary Board."

Will was curious why he was about to be called out on the carpet by somebody that wasn't even in his chain of command. Of course, the moment that thought occurred to him the lady on the other end bid him good day and hung up. Hearing the dial tone at the other end, Will sighed, and plunked the phone back on to its cradle. Sitting up, he rotated his neck, and swung his legs out of the twin-sized bed he maintained in his apartment, pushing aside the blue-green pattern sheets and comforter. Blinking quickly, he rubbed his eyes and made his way into the bathroom, and turned on the water, not really bothering to let it mix before getting in.

In there, he stood and let the water beat the hangover he was nursing from a bottle of Coors and half a bottle of Beefeater Gin he had consumed the night before. Leaving his eyes closed, he leaned against a wall and tried to sort himself out, picking up a bottle of Pert Plus from the edge of the bathtub and got to work making himself presentable. Part of him, a tiny part, was dreading the ass chewing he was about to receive before he finally got the ax. Will was far from stupid, and knew that the powers that be, while they appreciated his work in finding the traitorous bastards within the Bureau, had very little love for him at all. He had known that they would have been looking for an excuse to throw his ass out at the drop of a hat, but that hadn't stopped him from rearranging that bastard's face in Morley's Pub.

Will knew he had lost it when the guy wouldn't shut his mouth about how fucked up things were being handled in China, and how wrong it was for the US to occupy Shanghai and have Hong Kong under British rule again. To a China War veteran, he hadn't appreciated the sentiments, and he had politely told the man he would appreciate it if he would just shut the fuck up about something he didn't have the first clue about. Said man had then retorted that Will was a fucking Nazi, and hoped that his kind suffered long and hard for what they did.

Will Black had gone ape-shit then, smashing the glass tumbler he had been drinking Jack with into the cunt's face. No longer had he been in some pub in the nation's capital, he was back in Siberia, Al Boatner screaming as the sadistic fuckers had used slowly ran knives along the soft portions of his body. Things had degenerated from there, and that was the only thing he remembered before waking up to see his supervisor, Helen Cardigan, slapping him awake in a DCPD (Alexandria having long fallen into the command of the DC Police Department around 2018) drunk tank. It had been fortunate that his boss had been there meeting with the precinct captain about some case when three of DC's finest had dragged him, kicking and struggling, in to be processed.

He had been pretty battered and bruised, and his boss hadn't been amused to say the slightest. She had dropped him off at his house with the warning to keep his nose clean until the Disciplinary board contacted him. Cardigan had icily told him he was fortunate that he hadn't been armed or carrying his ID when that happened, otherwise things would have gotten far, far worse. As it was, the DCPD had let him go because they thought he was nothing more then a snitch for the Feds, and they had washed their hands of him as a personal favor to her.

Scrubbing himself fiercely, he rinsed off, and turned the water off. Gingerly, not wanting to fall on his ass, he stepped out of the shower, and toweled off. Wrapping the thick cloth around his waist, he took out a razor and other toiletries, and started shaving. Within a few minutes, he was done, and as he usually did, he took a moment to look at his reflection in the mirror. Every morning he would look at his face, the clean lines unmarked the way his right arm and chest were by scars, the swelling and marks of the brawl long gone. Will was five ten, and still pretty fit considering he was no longer a twenty two year old rifleman. Running a hand through his dark hair (auburn though dark enough that it was almost chestnut brown with a few highlights of red), he absently wondered if he should have kept up the blonde dye he had been forced to use in Russia. Deciding against it, he went to his bedroom, and opened his closet. Inside, a habit from his time in the Marine Corps, was his wardrobe, organized with every button closed, and zipper fastened. Will's last (indeed only) partner had called it his Men in Black wardrobe, for everything was either black or white.

There he removed a lightweight black suit, with a white button down short-sleeve and black tie, from it and he quickly got dressed. Picking up his jacket and shoes, he sat on the edge of his bed (unmade since he had gotten back) and put on a pair of black nylon socks. Glancing at his watch on the nightstand, he saw he still had a good two hours before he had to be at the Hoover Building. Even if traffic were pretty bad (it was a Friday, and every civil servant in town was going to be making a run for it), he would still have an hour to burn once he got there. Will didn't think cooling his heels in a goddamn waiting room for an hour was going to do him much good…

Still, Will thought to himself, you never know with this town, so get your ass moving. His tie held in place by a gold-plated tiepin that he had used in the Corps, he put on a black leather belt, and clipped on it his issue SIG and magazine holster. Over this he threw on his coat, and took a look at himself in the bathroom mirror. It felt strange, but Will knew that was only because he was breaking habits he had been practicing since last September. Instead of slicking back his hair with gel, it hung on his head relatively short, not touching his hears, yet long enough to part. He didn't smell of three hundred dollar cologne, only of Irish Spring, the powder deodorant he favored, and Old Spice. Instead of bootleg Italian suits, he was dressed in Dillenger's and the tailored suits he had got at Brooks Brothers using his savings. Most important of all, one that bothered him more then anything else, he didn't carry any of the weapons he had carried on his body the whole time he was undercover. Will didn't have the small knife he had carried on his left forearm (that was in Russia) nor the length of shoestring he had kept in his pocket should the need for a garrote arise. All he had on him was his SIG-Saur P226, just like every other field agent in the Bureau.

Unplugging his cell phone from the charger in the wall, he slipped it into a pocket, and picked up his watch, wallet, and credentials. The last two he slid in with his cell phone inside his jacket pocket, and turned towards his door. Before he left, he took a look around his two-bedroom apartment. It wasn't much, and it showed the sort of life he lived: nothing really to tie him down, rather Spartan, and the only signs of the person occupying this apartment having a life at all was the small study he had set up in the second bedroom, and the usual mess of bachelorhood. Empty beer and water bottles on the coffee table, the other night's DVD rental from Blockbuster next to a small entertainment system of TV-Cable-DVD Player, and a hamper of laundry that he had been debating taking care of as part of his work for the day was about the extent of the decorum. Nonetheless, all of it didn't give much to identify it as the home of William Black, former Marine and Special Agent, FBI.

Just as that thought occurred to him Will's eyes darted back to nightstand close to his bed. There, besides a lamp half-falling apart he had picked up at a yard sale in Georgetown, was a single framed photograph. Unlike other photos he had, which he kept in a small cardboard box in the closet of his study, this one was something special. It was a semi-professional one, taken at a fellow agent's wedding in NYC when he had worked the Counter-Intelligence desk for NYC, and it showed Will his face set in a casual smile, his arms around a short, dark-haired woman who had beamed a brilliant smile at the camera. The same woman Will had loved for pretty much his whole career in the Bureau.

Coming from his background and childhood, and having seen just about everyone he let get close to him end up either dead or crippled, he had found himself, without realizing it, falling for the woman in the photo. It probably had something to do with the fact the two had known each other for little over six years. An additional factor may have been that both had been partners since the Academy as part of a personnel experiment to see if pairs of agents who had worked together over a long period of time were more effective, particularly in the Criminal Justice division.

Will had had only realized how much he had loved her when they had been separated, when she had been transferred to Washington two years earlier, and he had been sent to the Big Apple. Physically, Will had always been attracted to her, but over the years they had worked together Will had kept things absolutely platonic. Since he could count the number of living friends on one hand, he hadn't wanted to fuck anything up. Outside of flirting, which Will had started to wish he had decided to build, both had kept their hands to themselves.

Then she had come up both to attend the wedding of her friend (the bride, a fellow acquaintance from the Academy), and, as she had revealed when they had been dancing, to see him. They had danced, and while they had been dancing, Will enjoying getting close to her to the tune of 'Tears in Heaven' she had surprised him by telling him how she felt. Will's partner apparently had loved him, cared for him deeply ever since they had met. Will had been gladdened, for her feelings totally mirrored his own. Indeed, he had thought earlier of working up the guts to try and establish a more, personal relationship (he spent as much time in DC coordinating the cases in New York as he did in the city of New York itself, to the extant that he maintained an apartment in DC and rented an even more Spartan place up there). Yet he had frozen on that dance floor, only smiled hugged her, and wound up leaving her when his boss Ed Gavin had gone up to him as soon as the song ended. Gavin had sent him over to see Helen Cardigan, once she had explained the suicidal assignment they had in mind the adrenaline junkie within had taken over. He hadn't even gone back to say good bye, instead taking a back door to a safe house where he had been prepped for the operation in total secrecy.

Black had turned the keys to his apartment and his '25 Pontiac sedan over to Cardigan for safekeeping, and for all intents and purposes dropped off the face of the earth. Needless to say, he had lost touch with the woman in the picture, and had given up on her. Odds were, she had probably found someone, someone who could probably offer more then he could, and while he found that line of thought painful, it was comforting in a way he felt he deserved after the way he probably had broken hers. After all, he had survived his fair share and then some of combat, not to mention the constant danger during his undercover work, because he thought of himself as a gambler with nothing left to lose. His life, if one could call his current existence that, was in his book nothing.

Exiting, and locking his door, he took the stairs to the parking lot and got in his sedan. Backing out, his thoughts turned to his former partner, the woman whom he readily admitted was one of a very, very small body of people he trusted completely. Will, with a double bachelor from UCSD in Poli-Sci and Psychology, and masters in Psychology from Georgetown, had to wonder just what the hell had been his malfunction. There had been a mutual attraction (or so he believed), he trusted her, both knew each really well, yet he had frozen, not telling her his feelings…And then Cardigan had asked him to volunteer for that undercover assignment from hell, and he had grabbed it with both hands. The only reason he had deduced so far for treating her that way was that he was, not putting a shine it, a coward who didn't want to settle down and build the dream had had secretly nurtured for years. Either that, or the combination of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder he knew he suffered from China and Korea and those three years in VCS getting into the minds of such sterling characters as the Atlantic strangler and other assorted evils had left him a very fucked up individual with major issues concerning his value as a human being.

With those pleasant thoughts on his mind, it took him a good hour and a half to make it to the parking lot. As he had feared, everybody in Sodom on the Potomac had been making a mad dash out of town as soon as lunchtime hit. Swearing, he slammed the door to his car shut and tried to think of something, anything that would get his mind off of what was about to happen. Walking quickly, his pass clipped to the front of his jacket, he made his way in and to one of the elevators. There wasn't anybody he recognized, and nobody so much as gave him a second glance as he took a spot in the back of the elevator. Seeing his floor already punched he tried to relax some, but instead, he wound up analyzing, well, just about every event that got him to this point, to include the beginning.

He was twenty-three years old, and getting ready to graduate from UCSD with his masters. After the war, he had spent the remainder of his term with the Corps at Twenty-Nine Palms, and had more then enough time to work on a degree, both Bachelor and Master's. He had gotten out just in time to finish up the rest of his credits as a full-time student. Will hadn't a clue what he wanted to do with his new degrees, maybe go back to Mother Corps and become an officer through OCS. Then, there had been that time in the middle of one his Psychology classes, right as he was finishing up his masters, an agent came up to him with an offer he couldn't refuse. It seemed the Bureau was looking for people just like him, and would offer him the same pay and somewhat better living conditions. To Will, who had spent the better part of a year freezing and baking in such Club Med spots as Pyongyang, eastern Siberia, and Manchuria, the decision had been pretty easy to make. Few friends (the live ones were scattered all over the wild, wooly world), no family, no significant other…it had been a pretty easy choice to make.

Spotting the number for his floor on the elevator monitor, he got off quickly and made his way to the AD's office. Around him other agents were busy trying to get their work done before the weekend, one or two on the phone with the wife and kids, or husband or boyfriend or girlfriend plotting their weekend getaway. Reminders, Will thought to himself, of a life outside of a bottle of booze and an adrenaline rush. A sign perhaps from the Powers Above to go forth and get a life, perhaps... Nah, he thought to himself, don't kid yourself you worthless fuck. Spotting the door with "Assistant Director John Doggett" stenciled on it, he straightened his tie, ran a hand through his hair, and entered. A prim, gray-haired secretary was sitting at the reception desk, typing away when he entered. She looked up and asked, "Special Agent Black?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Please take a seat for a moment."

Thanking her, Will continued to stand, and looked out of the window to get a nice view of the Beltway. He didn't have much time to wait as the secretary told him, "The AD will see you now." Thanking her again, he took a deep breath; he paused at the outer door, and knocked twice. "Enter". For a minute, Will had a weird sense of déjà vu of the time when he and two of his buddies had been called out on the carpet by the Battalion Sergeant Major, the top, and their platoon sergeant. Come to think of it, it had been for almost the same reasons, though instead of a bar, it was a glass-house in Seoul before they had gone on the line in the Land of the Morning Calm…

Stepping in briskly, he strode until he were three steps away from the desk, facing the AD. He stood tall, and with his arms behind him, he answered, "Special Agent Black reporting as ordered." Doggett didn't mess around, ordering him, "Take a seat." Will did so, and no sooner had his ass touched the padding when Doggett held up a plain, brown folder. "You know what this is?"

"No, sir." Will didn't know per se, but if he had to guess it was probably the file containing his various sins and misdeeds, the ones that would see his ass thrown out of the FBI.

Doggett opened it and perused through it for a moment before he answered. "This, Mister Black, is the report I received from Special Agent Cardigan concerning your activities at Fitzgerald's, a sports bar about a block and a half from your apartment in Alexandria. It says you were in physical contact of a violent nature with no less then ten patrons of the bar, and no less then six metropolitan police officers. Of those last six, they had restrain you using a stun gun and that subsequent testing revealed you to have a blood alcohol level three times above the legal limit for drunkenness." Doggett set the folder on the table, and flipped through several of the pages. "It's stated that nine of the patrons involved were treated for various cuts and bruises, and three for an assortment of broken bones. Of the cops one is minus two of his teeth thanks to you."

Another pause, and Doggett spoke again, "I also have here a report from one of the people involved in your debriefing at the embassy in Moscow. The report states you struck a fellow agent in the face with a pot of coffee, and scalded him rather badly. Care to explain that?"

"No excuse…"

Will didn't get the chance to finish before Doggett barked back. "Don't give me that bullshit! Give me a reason why."

Doggett took a moment to stop, and took several deep breaths. Will did almost similar as he really, really didn't want to think too much of the incident in Moscow. Some asshole he had worked with in New York, some dickhead who thought he was hotshot because he had been on some major crime task force and gotten into a few gun-battles. The smug son of a bitch had done nothing but rag and snicker at the Intel he had spent a long time and a lot of pain and trauma to get at. What had set things off was when he had cracked some joke about 'Doctor Ice back at the Hoover office', his former partner, and Will had taken the coffee pot that had been next to his elbow and decorated the smug bastard's face with it.

His old platoon leader Stan Green and Tom Marlboro wound up having to restrain him yet again, this time handcuffing him to a chair for the rest of the session and from then on during the debrief.

Will's lack of response created a long stretch of silence, as both men wound up trying to stare the other down. It was a moment before Doggett, his voice emotionless compared with the dark rage of only a moment earlier, spoke, "Do you know what I intend on doing with this?" Will had a wild urge to yell that he was going to use it to fuck him over like a lot of other people. Yet he didn't, only shaking his head, gritting his teeth.

Doggett stared at him, face expressionless, and held the folder in one hand. With the other he ripped out the black plastic burn bag that was attached to the underside of his desk, for those communiqués and documents he wanted destroyed and not just thrown out. The file he threw in the bag, sealed it, and set it on his desk. Doggett slapped the intercom, and ordered his secretary to replace the burn bag, that he had something he wanted destroyed immediately.

It took Will a few moments when the Secretary was clearing away the bag to get it through his head that he wasn't about to be thrown out of the Bureau just yet.

He vaguely heard the AD talking to him, but didn't catch it.

"Sir, I'm sorry, I didn't follow you…"

AD Doggett glared at him, and asked sarcastically, "Woolgathering, Mister Black? Don't they teach you at the Island to pay attention when you walk point? You fucking pogue. No wonder Mother Corps threw you out like a used rubber, you limp-dick motherfucker." Will grabbed the armrests of his chair and threw himself up to his feet. His voice had hit command decibel level before he was through standing, Doggett's contemptuous voice having sliced into him like a blade..

"You go fuck yourself up the asshole, Doggett. If you want to throw me out of the Bureau on my dick go ahead and fucking do so, but don't you fucking talk about shit you don't know about you cum drinking cocksucker!"

Will had his hands balled into fists, and had to restrain himself from drawing his sidearm, and filling this cold-hearted prick with enough lead that they could use him for radiation shielding. He had to remind himself that he was no longer running and gunning for the Russian mob, that he was back in the real world where you took what shit was thrown at you, ate it up with a spoon, and asked for seconds with a grin.

Doggett then did the unexpected: he smiled, and nodded his head. "Sit down, Black. I still have words with you that you'll want to hear. And for what it's worth, I got out after Lebanon for what I guess is similar reasons." He slapped the intercom, and ordered coffee for both of them. Will wanted just a cup of black, no sugar, milk or cream, pure caffeine to perhaps settle him down.

After Doggett's secretary had delivered the coffee, the AD turned to him, mug in hand, and told him, "My apologies for the little charade, but I wanted to see if you were a legitimate case of being misunderstood, as opposed to being a piece of trash that got lucky. I know it was a low-blow calling you a pogue, but once a Marine."

"Always a Marine," Will finished as he shrugged to the Doggett's apologies. He was still hyper, but the practical man in him was telling him that now was the time to shut up, sit down and listen.

"Sir, will that be all or…"

Doggett took another sip of his coffee, and began, "No, I called you in to tell you of your next assignment. Your boss, Helen Cardigan, was one of my agents when I ran the Charlotte office. She told me you about your last assignment and of what you've had to go through. Helen wants you to lie low for a little bit, as you got two factors that are going to really hurt you. The first and foremost is that even with the intel you brought out of Russia, nobody knows how far the rot has gone, and we don't know if anyone is going to burn you down quite yet. Second, and a factor to a degree from the first, is that she fears, and so do I, that you will be hurt in a situation not unlike that of the goose that laid the golden egg. You'll be rewarded, but at the same time everybody and his uncle here in Washington will be making an effort to stab you in the back over this."

"So where will I be assigned? Fargo, Minot, Wounded Knee?" Will named some of the more remote outposts the FBI had, as what Doggett was proposing was quite like what he had envisioned his own reward would be.

Doggett shook his head, and asked him, "You'll still be here in Washington, though in a capacity that will both silence the detractors, and make you a hard enough target for the Mob as to be untouchable. In addition, your duties will undoubtedly keep you on the road, so you will be both maintaining a low profile here, and more often then not be out of sight." Black had a sneaky idea he was going to be given a desk job, maybe assigned to run background checks on the janitors working in the Hoover Building…

"Ever hear of a unit within the Bureau called the X-Files unit?"

Will nodded, much to Doggett's surprise, and explained, "I was given a study assignment at the Academy to examine a case file on the Bureau's handling of investigations on military installations, and I found the summary sheet from one in 1993 outlining of the disappearance of several test pilots at an Air Force base in Idaho. What got me was the facts the agents involved came from Washington as opposed to the Bureau's field office in Boise." Black paused, as though he were thinking for a moment before he continued, "In addition, the file intrigued me for the SAC was Fox Mulder, whom we were instructed was one of the Agency's better profilers during mid 80s, but then dropped out of sight around the early nineties. As I recall he was one of the agents who worked the Green River case in its early stages, to include writing the profile that eventually nabbed the perp in question."

Doggett nodded, apparently impressed by Black's knowledge. "You aware then of what the section handled in terms of cases?"

Will laughed then, and nodded, "They handled the weird, and unwanted cases the Bureau had a mandate to look into, but didn't want to. From what I gathered, anyhow, that was how it appeared." His eyes flickered for a moment, and then asked, "I understood when I asked about the files that they were…"

"Shut down since July 1, 2002." Doggett filled in for him, and explained, "I worked the X-files for about two years at the turn of the century. Before me and my future wife, who was then Agent Reyes, it was Agents Mulder and Scully though for a short time before my wife and I showed up it was two others." He paused again, "As of last week, I have been given the go ahead to reactivate the X-files. You, and one other agent will be the new X-files team."

Will let the new information sink in, secretly and pathetically pleased that he wasn't being shut into some closet of an assignment where the most fascinating thing was to watch the paint peel. The cases might be weird, but at least they would be interesting in a way a circus freak show was. Maybe that was all he needed, a bit of comic relief in his life…Not to mention he would probably be able to swing it so that he would be out of town half the time…

Doggett continued, oblivious to what was going on in Will's head, "Same as it was before, two-agent team, one drawn from the technical side of the house, the other from the field. You answer only to me, and operate as low-key as possible. Is that understood?"

"Like crystal, sir. Will our mission be the same as it was before?"

"Yes and no. Yes in that you will be handling cases of that nature, and no in the sense that you will only be handling those cases in the future. The first case you are going to be assigned to is rather important, and I have received orders from the Director's office that it is to be…" Doggett's secretary rang up then, her voice cutting in.

"Sir, Special Agent…"

Doggett slapped the intercom, and ordered, "Send her in." He looked over at Will, "Your new partner. I believe you two may have…" A knocking on the door, and Doggett gave the same gruff, "Enter" as he had used with Will. Will leaned back in his chair, as a slight bit of fear started worming in the base of his stomach. There was no way, it couldn't possibly be…

His thoughts were interrupted as woman, shorter then him at five-four with shoulder-length, dark brown hair, and wearing a suit of black blouse and slacks entered. She stopped in front of the AD's desk, and reported, "Special Agent Nina Cross reporting as ordered." Will got up, Nina saw him, and Will could see the surprise in her eyes. Doggett motioned with his right hand. "Agent Cross, agent Black. I believe you know each other. You two will be working together on the X-files." Will nodded and held out his hand, and the two shook. Despite himself, he found his hand lingering, and noticing how warm and soft it felt…

Nina smiled at him, and Will found the shell, the poker face he had had to wear twenty-four seven for the past nine months and still wore out of habit breaking. "Will," She said, and he broke it off, a bit more curtly then he intended, "Nina." Doggett then began telling her what he had told Will just a few minutes earlier, informing her of the kind of work involved with the X-files.

Will wasn't paying attention to him, instead looking at the wall behind Doggett, his thoughts on Nina. True, he had been dealt many a strange hand of cards in his life. However, this had to top all of it as the photo of his last partner, the one on his nightstand, the woman whom he had, for all intents abandoned rather then face the music in his heart, was once again before him.

Nina Cross was that smiling woman in the photo on the nightstand. The woman whom Black knew whose heart he had smashed with his own in New York all those months earlier…


End file.
